Too Little Attention Paid To Christian Persecution

A.M. ROSENTHAL

February 23, 1997|A.M. ROSENTHAL The New York Times

Some columns can be postponed for more important topics, some put off until they seem newsier and many dropped because they do not flesh out. But some have to be written as soon as information is collected, no matter how late.

This column is late, not because so much has been written about the subject and everybody knows, but for exactly the opposite reason.

A few journalists have written about the persecution of Christians in Communist or religious dictatorships. A few legislators have risen to protest. A few clergymen and their religious organizations try to arouse congregations.

But astonishingly few, compared not only with the spread of the persecution, but what could be done to fight it, if the political, religious, business and press leaders of the world had the will and courage.

The following few paragraphs sum it up: "Millions of American Christians pray in their churches each week, oblivious to the fact that Christians in many parts of the world suffer brutal torture, arrest, imprisonment and even death - their homes and communities laid waste - for no other reason than that they are Christians. The shocking untold story of our time is that more Christians have died this century simply for being Christians than in the first nineteen centuries after the birth of Christ. They have been persecuted and martyred before an unknowing, indifferent world and a largely silent Christian community.

"Eleven countries where Christians are currently enduring great religious persecution are China, Sudan, Pakistan, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Egypt, Nigeria, Cuba, Laos and Uzbekistan ... They evidence a worldwide trend of anti-Christian persecution based on two political ideologies - Communism and militant Islam."

These passages are from "The Lion's Den" - as in Daniel 6:21: "My God sent his angel and he shut the mouths of the lions" - by Nina Shea, director of the Puebla Program of Freedom House, and is published by Broadman and Holman (1-800-233-1123).

Too briefly, but to be returned to another day: In the Sudan it is a pogrom. The Islamic militant Government has bombed and burned Christian villages, taken Christian children as slaves and tortured Christian worshipers and their priests.

In Saudi Arabia, that great ally of the United States, no public expression of Christianity or any religion but Islam is permitted. No Bibles, no crosses except those smuggled and used on pain of arrest and torture. The price of conversion to Christianity is death.

In China, thousands of Roman Catholic and Protestant Chinese are imprisoned - more than in any country in the world - for holding worship, preaching or distributing Bibles without permission.

Like other Communist or Islamist states, China is an equal-opportunity persecutor. It makes life as nasty as possible in Buddhist Tibet.

If I were Christian I would complain that Christian leaders, political, religious and business, around the world have failed in their obligations to fight oppression of their co-religionists. I am complaining anyway.

Nor do I think Jewish organizations have done nearly enough, although more are involved than I had first thought. The presidents of Jewish organizations in meetings with U.S. officials have denounced anti-Christian persecution in Islamic nations.

I hope they also get more involved against persecution in China and Tibet and that Israel shows the United States the path to righteousness by ending arms trade with China. It was a Jew, Michael J. Horowitz of the Hudson Institute, who screamed me awake, as he has so many Christians.

In and out of Congress, the campaign to free Soviet Jewry is being studied for lessons on how to help persecuted Christians. Some obvious lessons: Organize congregations to pay attention, more and continuously, to co-religionists outside America. Make sure every American official meeting any Communist or Islamicist protests, and warns, every time. Fight for legislation strengthening the rights of religious refugees and use of economic pressures.

Elect senators like Specter, Nickles, Lieberman, Ashcroft and Allard, and representatives like Wolf, Smith of New Jersey, Pelosi and Gilman.

And, personal note: Once awake, don't fall asleep again.

Readers may write to A.M. Rosenthal at The New York Times, 229 W. 43rd St., New York, N.Y. 10036.